Hey, Tim... you want to do a dive in the park together? My gills have really dried up from all this smoke. Imagine having the park to ourselves for a weekend.
Of course as a biologist, a major concern of mine is for the wildlife in the heavily burned areas of the interior. Our Catalina Island foxes (unique subspecies) were just recovering on the East End from the outbreak of canine distemper in the late 1990's. They aren't able to run very far to escape the flames, especially the young pups. Bald eagles can fly to avoid the flames. I'm sure the raptors will have a field day with all the barbecued food.
It will be very interesting to watch the ecological recovery of the burned area. When I was V.P. of the Catalina Conservancy, we took advantage of several major burn areas from previous fires to conduct fire ecology and recovery studies. There were a number of unique species seen after those fires since the island had not had much of a fire history earlier due to goats keeping the brush down.
I can't serve as a spokesman for the present Conservancy, but I'd like to suggest that this is an opportunity for our visitors to come see close-up and personal what happens following fire in California chaparral and coastal sage scrub communities. Of course don't go tramping off trails, but this may be an interesting perspective... quite different from the "lush" (in a non-tropical sense) beauty of the unburned island. I've already suggested the interior tours focus on educating visitors about the positive ecological effects of wildland fires (as long as they don't injure people or destroy property).
Going to be an interesting island for the next few years. I may have to do a little more hiking and a little less diving! Just a little of course.
Of course as a biologist, a major concern of mine is for the wildlife in the heavily burned areas of the interior. Our Catalina Island foxes (unique subspecies) were just recovering on the East End from the outbreak of canine distemper in the late 1990's. They aren't able to run very far to escape the flames, especially the young pups. Bald eagles can fly to avoid the flames. I'm sure the raptors will have a field day with all the barbecued food.
It will be very interesting to watch the ecological recovery of the burned area. When I was V.P. of the Catalina Conservancy, we took advantage of several major burn areas from previous fires to conduct fire ecology and recovery studies. There were a number of unique species seen after those fires since the island had not had much of a fire history earlier due to goats keeping the brush down.
I can't serve as a spokesman for the present Conservancy, but I'd like to suggest that this is an opportunity for our visitors to come see close-up and personal what happens following fire in California chaparral and coastal sage scrub communities. Of course don't go tramping off trails, but this may be an interesting perspective... quite different from the "lush" (in a non-tropical sense) beauty of the unburned island. I've already suggested the interior tours focus on educating visitors about the positive ecological effects of wildland fires (as long as they don't injure people or destroy property).
Going to be an interesting island for the next few years. I may have to do a little more hiking and a little less diving! Just a little of course.
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